Bartleby, the Scrivener

A Story of Wall Street

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A deceptively simple premise – a scrivener who refuses to work – gives way to one of the most spectacular works of a great American author.

When a Manhattan lawyer’s workload increases, he hires a new scrivener to help manage the workload. At first Bartleby, is an excellent addition to the office. But when his productivity starts dropping – and doesn’t stop – his boss has to intervene. Yet he is baffled when the only answer he can get from Bartleby about working is, “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby refuses to work, but refuses to leave. What’s to be done with Bartleby?

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Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. When his father died, he was forced to leave school and find work. After passing through some minor clerical jobs, the eighteen-year-old young man shipped out to sea, first on a short cargo trip, then, at twenty-one, on a three-year South Sea whaling venture. From the experiences accumulated on this voyage would come the material for his early books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), as well as for such masterpieces as Moby-Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856), and Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories (posthumous, 1924). Though the first two novels—popular romantic adventures—sold well, Melville's more serious writing failed to attract a large audience, perhaps because it attacked the current philosophy of transcendentalism and its espoused "self-reliance." (As he…